Thursday roundup: Fahle leaving WDET, EFF chimes in on net neutrality

Published on Current.org, July 17, 2014

• WDET-FM will lose its local morning talk show host, and its co-general manager, when Craig Fahle leaves in August to work as communications director for the Detroit Land Bank Authority. Fahle is host of The Craig Fahle Show, which airs from 9 a.m. to noon on the Detroit pubcaster. “I’m excited because my new job will have me directly involved in helping to craft strategies and plans to restore and repopulate Detroit’s neighborhoods, something I care deeply about,” Fahle wrote in a letter announcing his decision. He has been with WDET for almost 22 years, having started as an intern. In addition to hosting the show, he has served as co-general manager with Michelle Srbinovich since July 2013 when former g.m. Mikel Ellcessor resigned.

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation has joined the Online News Association and other groups in submitting a public comment protesting the FCC’s proposed rule changes regarding net neutrality. “The FCC’s current course is dangerous. It could undermine what makes the Internet the groundbreaking technology that it is,” said EFF Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz in the organization’s release. As an alternative to the proposed legislation, the EFF advocates for reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service rather than an information service, enforcing the same “common carrier” rules for Internet access that govern telephone access. The first deadline for public comment on net neutrality is Friday.

• New Jersey freeform radio station WFMU opened its live performance space last weekend. The facility, supported by a grant from the Knight Foundation, is billed as more than just a music venue: “We hope to host not only music events, but also films, comedy shows, many live broadcasts, listener meet-ups, and any other creative idea we may come up with in the future,” assistant g.m. Liz Berg told the Village Voice. Inaugural performers included Doug Gillard and Pampers.

• Chris Hardwick’s Comedy Central show @Midnight asks: “NPR Anchor or Minor Star Wars Character?” In the two-minute bit, written by Jordan Morris of the podcast network Maximum Fun, celebrity panelists try to determine whether Neda Ulaby and Ofeiba Quist-Arcton are pubradio reporters or aliens in George Lucas’s Expanded Universe. Warning: there is a penis joke.